Local school hoax brings Newtown's terror home

For many, Friday's massacre of 20 first-graders and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., can feel tragic yet far away.

It did for Sephra Stephenson, who walked her 9-year-old daughter to class Monday morning at Cambridge Elementary School in Alamo Heights. Then, returning to her car as two police officers sprinted toward the school with their weapons drawn, suddenly it didn't.

Stephenson immediately went to the school's front desk to retrieve her daughter, but an administrator, tears streaming down her face, told her she had to leave, without her daughter, because the school was locked down.

It was the start of a wrenching day of uncertainty for many parents waiting for word about their children. The fear ended around 1:30 p.m., when officials allowed parents to enter five at a time and get their kids.

To a degree, the terror of Newtown had come crashing home. The Alamo Heights Independent School District provided information to parents in emails throughout the morning, but the children stayed locked inside the school for hours.

“Cambridge Elementary received a threatening phone call today,” stated a message at 8:58 a.m. “The campus is currently on lockdown as a precaution and the police are on campus. All students are safe and the police are currently talking to the person on the phone.”

A call to the school had stoked fears that an “active shooter” was on the campus, according to a police source. But by 9:30 a.m., the city of Terrell Hills had sent another email stating, “There is no active threat on campus and there has not been any shooting or violence at the school.”

This did little to calm the fears of parents reduced to watching as rifle-wielding officers walked the roof, police cars sped back and forth, and bomb-sniffing dogs padded among parked cars.

At a nearby coffee shop, a group of stunned parents shared conflicting reports about the whereabouts of their kids: They were under their desks; they were in the auditorium; they were in their classrooms reading books. Two parents started crying when they heard a rumor about explosives.

“I just want to get my child and get out of here,” Catherine Cronkhite said. “I'm not leaving here without my kid — not after Friday.”

Collin Gregston worried about how even a hoax could affect his child's mental state.

“I don't want this to change how he feels about school,” Gregston said. “He loves school.”

After the lockdown was lifted, Superintendent Kevin Brown sent parents a final message: “The police have ascertained that the phone threat this morning was not credible. ... It is sad that someone would make a call and disrupt our schools. ... It is important for us to be mindful of how we talk about this with our children and to model calmness for them.”

It might seem that sadness is the only product of all this — the killings, the threats, the sudden insecurity. Whoever threatened the school has only heaped suffering upon suffering.

But whatever your politics — whether you think the solution is more guns or fewer — the hoax at Cambridge is a reminder of why we feel such grief for those massacred in Newtown last week, regardless of whether we knew the victims. It's a reminder of why a solution to this national madness that stole their lives is so urgently needed.

The reason is they are us and we are them, and the madness can happen anywhere.